Yup. It's amazing what can be done with a car using only a few camera sensors and the right software. People can even contribute sensor data to a self-driving machine learning platform using just their smartphones and an app that streams video up to the servers that will try to parse the road and other cars and figure out how the human is navigating various obstacles.

> "But, because the vehicles and their electronics are going to be very much more expensive to repair or replace I would guess there may not be any reduction.."

Self driving capabilities might be a $1000 add-on kit for nearly any modern car that already exists.. That's not a very expensive option to add to a car -- esp if it makes a car safer to drive. (Assuming autonomous cars are actually safer than human drivers....)

Well, I assume self driving cars will be equipped with lots of sensors that could also be used to help identify criminals who might target these cars. If anyone wanted to try to corral an autonomous car into a trap for hijacking it -- they'd probably have to disable the cameras and sensors that the car needs to drive itself first so they wouldn't be identified.

Hadn't even thought of that. Requires a whole new support mechanism to help get these cars out of snowy ditches before they get stripped for parts. Vandalism and weather are two things I'll be curious to see how they handle...

I thinks I recall that Nevada has now self driving trucks legally moving across that state. It would be interesting to see what the drivers, owners, and public's take is on that via some surveys and compare accident rate and even ROI to the companies using them compared to standard trucking.